29. April, 2016BlogComments Off on If you hurt nature you are hurting yourself

Nature is part of our life. We grew out of the seed, the earth, and we are part of all that. But we are rapidly losing the sense that we are animals like the others. Can you have a feeling for that tree, look at it, see the beauty of it, listen to the sound it makes; be sensitive to the little plant, to the little weed, to that creeper that is growing up the wall, to the light on the leaves and the many shadows? One must be aware of all this and have the sense of communion with nature around you. You may live in a town but you do have trees here and there. A flower in the next garden may be ill-kept, crowded with weeds, but look at it, feel that you are part of all that, part of all living things. If you hurt nature you are hurting yourself.

29. April, 2016BlogComments Off on IGNITING THE FLAME OF SELF-AWARENESS

If you find it difficult to be aware, then experiment with writing down every thought and feeling that arises throughout the day; write down your reactions of jealousy, envy, vanity, sensuality, the intentions behind your words, and so on. Spend some time before breakfast in writing them down, which may necessitate going to bed earlier and putting aside some social affair. If you write these things down whenever you can, and in the evening before sleeping look over all that you have written during the day, study and examine it without judgment, without condemnation, you will begin to discover the hidden causes of your thoughts and feelings, desires and words. Now, the important thing in this is to study with free intelligence what you have written down, and in studying it you will become aware of your own state. In the flame of self-awareness, of self-knowledge, the causes of conflict are discovered and consumed. You should continue to write down your thoughts and feelings, intentions and reactions, not once or twice, but for a considerable number of days until you are able to be aware of them instantly. Meditation is not only constant self-awareness, but constant abandonment of the self. Out of right thinking there is meditation, from which there comes the tranquility of wisdom; and in that serenity the highest is realized. Writing down what one thinks and feels, one’s desires and reactions, brings about an inward awareness, the cooperation of the unconscious with the conscious, and this in turn leads to integration and understanding.

J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Do we know what we mean by the self? By that, I mean the idea, the memory, the conclusion, the experience, the various forms of nameable and unnameable intentions, the conscious endeavor to be or not to be, the accumulated memory of the unconscious, the racial, the group, the individual, the clan, and the whole of it all, whether it is projected outwardly in action or projected spiritually as virtue; the striving after all this is the self. In it is included the competition, the desire to be. The whole process of that is the self; and we know actually when we are faced with it that it is an evil thing. I am using the word ‘evil’ intentionally, because the self is dividing: the self is self-enclosing: its activities, however noble, are separative and isolating. We know all this. We also know those extraordinary moments when the self is not there, in which there is no sense of endeavor, of effort, and which happens when there is love.

What is the centre? The centre is the ‘me’, the ‘me’ that wants to be a great person, that has so many conclusions, fears, motives. From that centre we think, but that centre has been created by the reaction of thinking. So can the mind be aware of thinking without the centre, just observe it? You will find how extraordinarily difficult it is just to look at a flower without naming it, without comparing it with other flowers, without evaluating it out of like or dislike. Experiment with this, and you will see how really difficult it is to observe something without bringing in all your prejudices, all your emotions and evaluations. But, however difficult, you will find that the mind can be aware of itself without the centre watching the movement of the mind.

To free the mind from all conditioning, you must see the totality of it without thought. This is not a conundrum; experiment with it and you will see. Do you ever see anything without thought? Have you ever listened, looked, without bringing in this whole process of reaction? You will say that it is impossible to see without thought; you will say no mind can be unconditioned. When you say that, you have already blocked yourself by thought, for the fact is you do not know. So can I look, can the mind be aware of its conditioning? I think it can. Please experiment. Can you be aware that you are a Hindu, a Socialist, a Communist, this or that, just be aware without saying that it is right or wrong? Because it is such a difficult task just to see, we say it is impossible. I say it is only when you are aware of this totality of your being without any reaction that the conditioning goes, totally, deeply; which is really the freedom from the self.

There are various schools, in India and further East, where they teach methods of meditation -it is really most appalling. It means training the mind mechanically; it therefore ceases to be free and does not understand the problem.
So when we use the word ‘meditation’ we do not mean something that is practiced. We have no method. Meditation means awareness: to be aware of what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling, aware without any choice, to observe, to learn. Meditation is to be aware of one’s conditioning, how one is conditioned by the society in which one lives, in which one has been brought up, by the religious propaganda -aware without any choice, without distortion, without wishing it were different. Out of this awareness comes attention, the capacity to be completely attentive. Then there is freedom to see things as they actually are, without distortion. The mind becomes unconfused, clear, sensitive. Such meditation brings about a quality of mind that is completely silent of which quality one can go on talking, but it will have no meaning unless it exists.

Krishnamurti: Let us go into the question very slowly, patiently, and find out. To find out is not to come to a conclusion. I don’t know if you see the difference. The moment you come to a conclusion as to what intelligence is, you cease to be intelligent. That is what most of the older people have done: they have come to conclusions. Therefore they have ceased to be intelligent. So you have found out one thing right off: that an intelligent mind is one which is constantly learning, never concluding.

What is intelligence? Most people are satisfied with a definition of what intelligence is. Either they say, “That is a good explanation”, or they prefer their own explanation; and a mind that is satisfied with an explanation is very superficial, therefore it is not intelligent.

You have begun to see that an intelligent mind is a mind which is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind, a mind that is watching, learning, studying. Which means what? That there is intelligence only when there is no fear, when you are willing to rebel, to go against the whole social structure in order to find out what God is, or to discover the truth of anything.

Intelligence is not knowledge. If you could read all the books in the world it would not give you intelligence. Intelligence is something very subtle; it has no anchorage. it comes into being only when you understand the total process of the mind – not the mind according to some philosopher or teacher, but your own mind. Your mind is the result of all humanity, and when you understand it you don’t have to study a single book, because the mind contains the whole knowledge of the past. So intelligence comes into being with the understanding of yourself; and you can understand yourself only in relation to the world of people, things and ideas. Intelligence is not something that you can acquire, like learning; it arises with great revolt, that is, when there is no fear – which means, really, when there is a sense of love. For when there is no fear, there is love.

If you are only interested in explanations, I am afraid you will feel that I have not answered your question. To ask what is intelligence is like asking what is life. Life is study, play, sex, work, quarrel, envy, ambition, love, beauty, truth – life is everything, is it not? But you see, most of us have not the patience earnestly and consistently to pursue this inquiry.

1. September, 2014BlogComments Off on Do you know what it means to learn?

Krishnamurti: Do you know what it means to learn? When you are really learning you are learning throughout your life and there is no one special teacher to learn from. Then everything teaches you – a dead leaf, a bird in flight, a smell, a tear, the rich and the poor, those who are crying, the smile of a woman, the haughtiness of a man. You learn from everything, therefore there is no guide, no philosopher, no guru. Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.

28. August, 2014BlogComments Off on So we are asking: is there a need for dreams?

So we are asking: is there a need for dreams?Is it possible not to dream? Consciousness is obviously not only of what is above, but also of what is below – the total thing. If during the waking day the content of the mind can be observed, watched, then when you sleep there will be no necessity for dreams. That is, if during the waking hours you are aware of your thoughts, of your feelings, of your reactions, your motives, the tradition, the inhibitions, the various forms of compulsion, the tensions – if you watch them, not correct them, not force them to be different, not translate them, but if you are actually choicelessly aware during the day – then the mind is so alert, so sensitive to every reaction, to every movement of thought, that the motives, the racial inheritance and all the rest of it are thrown up and exposed. Then you will see, if you do it seriously, with intensity, with a passion to find out, that your nights are peaceful, without a dream, so that the mind upon waking is fresh, clear, without distortion. The personal element is dissolved so that it can observe completely; this is possible, not by applying what the experts say, but through studying yourself as you watch yourself in the mirror when you shave, or when you comb your hair. Then you will find out that the whole of the unconscious is as petty, shallow, dull, as the superficial mind; there is nothing holy about the unconscious. Then the mind, being free from fear, from all the pain brought by pleasure, is not looking for pleasure. Bliss is not pleasure, bliss is something entirely different. Pleasure, as we pointed out, brings with it pain and therefore fear, but the mind is looking for pleasure – ultimate pleasure – because the pleasures that we have in this world are so worn out, they have become so dull and faded, and so one is always looking for new pleasures. But such a mind is always in a state of fear. A mind that is seeking everlasting pleasure, or wanting experiences that will assure great pleasure, such a mind is in darkness. You can observe this as a very simple fact.

What do we mean by thought? When do you think? Obviously, thought is the result of a response, neurological or psychological, is it not? It is the immediate response of the senses to a sensation, or it is psychological, the response of stored-up memory. There is the immediate response of the nerves to a sensation, and there is the psychological response of stored-up memory, the influence of race, group, guru, family, tradition, and so on;all of which you call thought. So, the thought process is the response of memory, is it not? You would have no thoughts if you had no memory, and the response of memory to a certain experience brings the thought process into action.What, then, is memory? If you observe your own memory and how you gather memory, you will notice that it is either factual, technical, having to do with information, with engineering, mathematics, physics, and all the rest of it; or, it is the residue of an unfinished, uncompleted experience, is it not? Watch your own memory and you will see. When you finish an experience, complete it, there is no memory of that experience in the sense of a psychological residue. There is a residue only when an experience is not fully understood, and there is no understanding of experience because we look at each experience through past memories, and therefore we never meet the new as the new, but always through the screen of the old. Therefore, it is clear that our response to experience is conditioned, always limited.